


Youth Was a Fever Dream

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Series: The Stories We Tell [8]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: M/M, Post-Battle of Camlann, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23354269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Kai has stories of a much younger Arthur. The townsfolk are starting to believe they will be able to be proud of their town again. Bedivere still hunts with his sword.
Relationships: Bedivere/Kay (Arthurian)
Series: The Stories We Tell [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608088
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Youth Was a Fever Dream

The handful of folk who had joined the Company at the tavern crowded around Kai, trying to ply him with questionable wine in exchange for stories.

They had been in the town for just over two months, the worst of summer's heat having left the air but the promise of fall had not made its presence known yet.

Kai was the only one of the Company who hadn't been forthcoming with any details about his life before they arrived in town.

The townsfolk had worked out on their own that they were warriors, and one night Galahad let it slip that he was raised in Camelot. The townsfolk's apprehension seemed to disappear after that.

Camelot, it seemed, still carried weight despite her downfall.

The Company had elected not to mention how close to the epicenter they had been. At least, not here. Not now. 

Not when they were staying long enough for more pointed questions to be formulated without such overt details.

Bedivere was shoulder-to-shoulder with Kai at the bar itself, trying to act as a buffer. Kai was running out of ways to say no without flat-out refusing.

“It's strange to see him so,” Galahad searched for the right word, “Mo, help me out here, what's the word I'm looking for.” He kept his voice low despite the relative seclusion being on the opposite side of the tavern afforded them.

“Noncommittal?” Mordred suggested, also keeping his voice low, “Maybe?”

“No,” Galahad shook his head, “but you were able to offer a word, unlike whatever's rattling around in my head.”

“Ale?” Mordred suggested.

Galahad laughed but kicked Mordred under the table anyways.

“It's their day of rest,” Galahad looked over the crowd around Kai, “I don't know how their god would feel about using the, uh, the rest day to get so drunk that harassing one of the men who's rebuilt the Inn seems like the best idea in the world.”

“The Inn isn't done yet,” Mordred said as if Galahad didn't know.

“It's close enough,” Galahad hissed, “At the very least, we can stay in it and don't get wet when it rains.”

“Our horses are going to be so mad when they have to be on the road again,” Mordred chuckled, “Except maybe Bedivere's. That one's still a little wild.”

“I think that's just his personality at this point,” Galahad grinned, “Is there a point we try to distract everyone?”

“I don't know,” Mordred admitted, “Passive!”

“Yes!” Galahad agreed, “It feels weird to see him so passive.”

“I guess he knows he shouldn't yell at them,” Mordred guessed. 

“Still,” Galahad frowned.

“He holds stories about himself close,” Mordred agreed, “We've been living alongside him and I still can't figure out what his favorite food is.”

Galahad realized he didn't know, either.

“A _brother_??” someone called near the bar.

“Ah,” Mordred realized Kai had let something slip.

The tavern fell silent.

Kai sighed, realizing what he had done.

–

He was five years my junior, and as such I was tasked with teaching him the ways of the world within minutes of meeting him.

I did not understand what it meant, at first – what value teaching had on a child, what meaning having a brother would add to my life.

I was always urging him to keep up, to catch up. 

And he always tried.

It's easy to say, in retrospect, how harsh I was on him, how much I expected of him. But that was not something I understood.

From the moment father decided I was old enough to wield a practice sword against makeshift training dummies in the fields, I gave my brother a similarly weighted stick and walked him through the same paces father had walked me through the night before. He was always more clumsy, less quick on the uptake, but always far more determined than I was to get it _right_.

–

“How old were you when you were given your first practice sword?” someone – the miller's second son – asked.

“Eight,” Kay laughed.

“Good Lord,” the bartender put a fresh mug of ale in front of Kay, “I'm trying to imagine my kids with swords when they were three.”

“To be fair it was a really big stick more than a sword,” Kay took the mug, “but yes, it had the effect you're imagining.”

–

He fell a lot, at first, the stick too big and heavy for him to swing correctly. 

One night father came home to find my brother had split his lip and scraped half his face. He, naturally, asked me instead of him what had happened.

So I told him.

Now, father was not the angry type. Quite the opposite. With us, at least. But seeing his youngest son's face bloodied like that snapped something in him.

He screamed at me like I'd never been screamed at in my life. I think he would have beat me, too, for letting a three year old learn to use a sword, had my brother not started screaming and crying and tugging at his leg begging him to stop.

–

“Sounds like you and your brother are close,” the miller's son noted.

“Yeah,” Kai offered his mug a sad smile as he turned it in his hands, “yeah, we were.”

–

After that, father realized whatever he expected of me, he'd have to provide an appropriate sized one for Ar – for my brother.

I learned how to set traps and snares to catch supper, and as such so did my brother. His hands were not yet ready for quick, precise knots, but he tried.

I would skin and prepare whatever we caught – rabbits and such, mostly. My brother did not have the stomach for blood until he was much older.

–

“Didn't have the stomach for it?” someone else asked.

“I think it was the sound, really,” Kai shrugged, “He never emptied his stomach, but he always looked like he might.”

“Did he ever try?”

“Once,” Kay grimaced, “Knife slipped and he damned near cut his arm so deep I was worried he'd bleed out. I was able to dress it well enough to get him back to the house to clean and dress it properly.”

“You can dress wounds?” Bedivere realized they'd never been in a position where Kai could save a life rather then end it.

“Yeah,” Kai realized the same thing, “Not in a way that's going to get me working alongside an actual physician, but enough that I can keep someone alive until then.”

Bedivere realized Kai wouldn't have been able to keep himself alive on his first journey to Camelot with a leg wound like the one he'd received if he _couldn't_ dress wounds.

“What else did you teach him to do?” someone further back in the crowd asked.

“Swim,” Kai said.

–

The same summer I first learned to swim, he wanted to learn, too. Father forbid it, said he wasn't yet big enough or strong enough for the currents of the river.

The man raised both of us, so really, he should have expected the exact opposite effect.

–

Bedivere winced. He knew how dangerous the river Kai was talking about was. That Ector though to teach Kai there was so close to madness it made his stomach turn.

–

When we knew father would be away for a few days, I took him down to the river to teach him to swim.

We started in the shallow bends where the rocks and downed trees made near-still pools. He picked up the basic strokes quickly, and soon started demanding I show him how to swim in the _real river._

I did, genuinely not understanding the dangers.

He learned in days what had taken me weeks to learn. 

“I'll race you to the other side,” he said as he pointed to the opposite bank from where we were standing one day.

“On go,” I agreed, “Mark. Steady. Go!”

When I got to the other side my first instinct was to look behind me. I saw no sign of him and started to panic, calling his name at the top of my lungs.

“I'm right here,” he said.

He had beaten me across.

–

Kai's story was cut off by rowdy laughter.

“What happened after?” the Miller's son demanded to know.

“After,” Kai chuckled, “after, we swam back, ran home, and hung our clothes out to dry. I decided, much later in the evening, that I needed to trust him when it came to his judgments of his own limitations. That he had a knack for survival, and maybe I should guide him instead of try to lead him.”

An influx of overlapping questions and demands for details drowned each other out.

Galahad nodded to Mordred and they began the longer-than-necessary process of extracting Kay and Bedivere under the guise of it being late and the construction beginning early.

“I thought they'd never stop,” Kai muttered as soon as the door shut behind him.

“Ah, Kai,” Bedivere held out his hand, silently asking Kai to come to him. Kai did, no resistance or hesitation.

“How much of it was true?” Mordred wanted to know more of what his father was like before he knew he was King.

“All of it,” Kai said.

“All?” Bedivere asked.

“All,” Kai repeated, “Mind you, the very next day he wanted to climb trees _like scouts do_ and got stuck. So. My resolution to trust his judgment didn't last long.”

Bedivere laughed, trying to reconcile the terrified-yet-furious boy-king with a lad stuck in a tree.

–

“Up,” Galahad nudged Mordred with the toe of his boot, “Come on, time to get to work.”

“No,” Mordred rolled over, “I refuse.”

“Up,” Galahad repeated, “You know you can't sleep while everyone else is trying to build.” That much they had learned the hard way.

Mordred groaned but hauled himself to his feet. 

“Think we'll be done by first frost?” Mordred asked.

“I hope so,” Galahad frowned, “otherwise it's going to be even harder to get everything set in the ground.”

“I thought we had set everything that needed to be set,” Mordred paused his search for work-suitable clothes.

“Yes,” Galahad sighed, “but there's still no final flooring on the first floor so if we can't gather the timbers we're going to have a bad, bad season once the rains pick up.”

Mordred hadn't even thought of that.

–

The inn was done less than a week before the first frost.

“Well thank God,” the Miller said, “Maybe next spring we'll start seeing travellers again.”

“That's my hope,” Bedivere said.

“You lads are welcome to stay as long as you want,” the tavern-keep-turned-innkeeper told them, “Lord knows we won't see enough travelers this winter to need your rooms as well, especially with you being so kind as to stay two to a room.”

Galahad thought he was going to bite clean through his cheek to keep from laughing. Kai kicked Galahad in the ankle with the side of his boot. Mordred took a step away from Kai

“Your kindness is deeply felt and even more deeply appreciated,” Bedivere wondered if he was the only one who had actually spent any time at Court.

–

“I need more hunts than I have days to get this town through winter,” Kai overheard the butcher tell the barkeep one night.

“We can help,” Kai offered.

The butcher stared at Kai a long time as if trying to see the measure of his very soul. Finally, he nodded.

“Bring your friend,” the butcher told him, “the one who brought the stag.”

Kai nodded. “We will be ready to ride at sunup.”

–

Kai told Bedivere about the upcoming hunt – or quite possibly hunts – as they settled into bed that night.

“Of course I'll come,” Bedivere said before Kai could ask if he would, “This is our home, however temporary, and if they run out of meat, we run out of meat.”

Kai hadn't thought of it like that when he'd offered, but now he was even more glad he'd extended the offer.

–

Bedivere steadied his beast as he finished adjusting the saddle, soft, calming words the mount seemed to understand.

The butcher was securing a small cart to his horse to they could make multiple large kills if fortune favored them.

“He's still wild, isn't he?” the butcher asked.

“Eh,” Bedivere shrugged, “I think he's as tame as he's going to get.”

Kay was already mounted and walking his horse in a circle to stretch its legs and get it used to having a rider again.

“His seems like a completely different stock,” the butcher indicated Kai with his head.

“Probably is,” Bedivere admitted, “Kai's always been...particular about his horses.”

“How many horses have you known him for?” the butcher asked.

“Three?” Bedivere tried to remember.

“A long time, then,” the butcher assessed, “My name is John.”

“I'm Bedivere,” Bedivere said, “Kai's, well, Kai.”

“And the lads who barely look old enough to have been landed Knights if they were that high up the chain are Mordred and Galahad,” John said, “Whole town's got your names on their lips near every time I catch a snippet of their conversation.”

Bedivere had the decency to look humbled.

“You're not going to tell me they weren't Knights, are you?” John asked as he mounted his horse.

“I try not to make a habit of lying,” Bedivere told him as he gave his saddle straps one final tug before mounting his own animals.

“Then why are you lot here?” Robin asked, “What business do four Knights who escaped the fall of Camelot have spending so much time in a backwater town when they could be anywhere?”

All of the sudden, the butcher's – Robin's ' initial and ongoing abrasiveness made sense.

“It's the right thing to do,” Bedivere told him as they moved to signal Kai to start pointing his horse in a straight line.

–

John hunted primarily by crossbow. Bedivere still preferred stabbing things. Kai primarily watched Bedivere stab things and helped him tie carcasses to the horses to carry them back to the cart.

“How does he get so close to them?” John asked Kai as Bedivere walked up to a lone stag.

“I have no idea,” Kai shook his head, “He's always been like this.”

Kay told John the story of how Bedivere killed the stag they rode into town with and John laughed so hard he nearly startled Bedivere's target animal.

Bedivere struck it at its throat, a blow he did not like delivering, but the animal staggered and then staggered some more, slow enough he could deliver a cleaned blow.

Bedivere gave Kai a _Why?_ gesture before signaling him to come help gather the carcass.

–

They rode out every morning after that until John told them he felt secure in having enough meat for the winter.

Some families would have their own stores, he told them, but not all of them.

If Kai soaked his leg longer than usual, Bedivere did not comment on it, only helped him knead the flesh and took up extra tidying around their room to allow Kai the rest he seemed to need.

“You're good to me,” Kai told him.

“You deserve good,” Bedivere assured him.

–

When the first snow came early, the meats were only half smoked and the houses were not ready.

Kai tried to stand but his leg gave way.

“Shit,” Kai hissed.

“Kai,” Bedivere was beside him in an instant, supporting him and guiding him back to their bed.

Mordred came in to check on them and Bedivere told him what was going on before Kai could try to talk his way into joining whatever task or venture Mordred was clearly dressed for doing.

“Rest,” Mordred told him.

Kai realized that, between Bedivere and Mordred – and undoubtedly Galahad once he was told – he did not have much of a choice.

–

“Shame,” Galahad said once Mordred told him of Kai's injury.

“Indeed,” Mordred agreed, “but come. There's work to be done and time is not a friend of ours.”

Galahad nodded his agreement and they set off to help the townsfolk shore up for the early winter.


End file.
